Inside Facebook said that the button would allow Facebook to collect a massive amount of "desire-based" data on its users' interests, which could be used in its battle with Google for online advertising revenues.

A number of e-commerce and commercial websites also already integrate the Facebook 'like' button on their sites, but this does not specify whether people specifically want the item, or already have it.

"Being able to distinguish between these groups of people and target ads to either one could be very powerful for advertisers and help make Facebook a stronger competitor to Google AdWords," said Inside Facebook.

Whilst publishing 'want' actions is currently disabled on Facebook, Waddington claimed that he was able to implement the button on his own site - although anyone clicking it simply gets an error message.